Hilda Johansson, expecting her first child and miserable in the summer heat, turns to crime investigation to occupy her mind. It’s a heat wave in more ways than one in the summer of 1905, as strikes, arson, and train wrecks threaten the fabric of civilized society in South Bend, Indiana. In the tumultuous first years of the twentieth century, anarchy seems to rule, with the assassination of an American president and labor unrest like the Anthracite Coal Strike bringing misery to millions. From St. Petersburg, Russia, to Chicago, U.S.A., the army, police, and strike-breakers battle workers in the streets, resulting in many deaths. How can a Swedish immigrant like Hilda Johansson, formerly a housemaid, possibly affect these conditions? Making deductions worthy of Sherlock Holmes-and using her own “Baker Street Irregulars”-Hilda recognizes a pattern to the disturbing events. Even though confined to her home by pregnancy, she draws from the town’s varied social strata and enlists allies to try to put an end to disruption and find justice for all. “Absorbing. . . . Well-portrayed characters and a final surprise sure to please series fans make this a winner.” -Publishers Weekly

Milllionaire playboy/detective Bill Chak volunteers to help his alma mater, the University of Texas, solve the mystery of the shooting death of their prize high school football recruit, Charlie Gonzalez, and his father, Abel Gonzalez, on their remote ranch in southwest Texas. His allies in the search are Booth Davis, the crusty county sheriff, and Rafael Ortiz, a Piedras Negras brothel operator who handles Chak's detective business in Mexico. Chak patiently pursues three leads which eventually prove to be false. First, a high school rival of the murdered boy is suspected. Then the arrow of suspicion points to Hamp MacGillicuddy, a rabid alumnus of Texas A & M who has gotten his school in trouble on several occasions with his unethical recruiting practices. The third suspect is the mother of Charlie Gonzalez and ex-wife of Abel Gonzalez, who hated him for divorcing her and taking up with an Anglo mistress. But the investigation abruptly changes course when a rented car is discovered in a deep water hole in the Frio River near the Gonzalez Ranch. There had been heavy rain and severe flooding the night of the murder, and the car had been washed off a low-water crossing into the river. It is a rental car from an agency at the San Antonio Airport. No body is found in the vicinity, so Chak and Davis assume that the driver escaped. The contents of the vehicle was soaked, but the searchers found a shotgun which had been fired five times, and one valuable clue - - a map of New York City with a location marked at the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village. The detective and the Sheriff interview personnel at the San Antonio agency which rented the car and get a good description of the driver. They then fly to New York City and check out the location of the X on the map. To their surprise, they find that an NYU professor, Murray Glass, was making a speech under the arch on Lincoln's birthday and was shot dead from the fire escape of a nearby building. They talk to the NYPD lieutenant who investigated the murder and are surprised to find that the FBI has taken over the case as a federal matter. They also learn that nobody can trace the professor's history back more than 10 years. Back in Texas, Chak enlists Rafael Ortiz to set up a meeting with the Gonzalez widow in Monterrey, Mexico. She is ambivalent about the murders - - angry and aggrieved by the death of her beloved son, Charlie, but glad that her conniving husband is dead. When the widow hears the description of the suspected murderer - - the man whose rent car was found in the Frio River - - she becomes furious and offers to help any way she can. Under questioning by Chak, she reveals that she and Mr. Gonzalez were originally wealthy Hondurans who owned a large plantation near the Nicaraguan border. When the U.S. set up the Palmerola air base in Honduras to supply the Contra rebels in the 1980's, they leased part of their plantation to U.S. agents for location of warehouses and refueling tanks. She explains that a small group of American and Hispanic men often came to their home for dinner, and that her husband told her that two of the men were wholesale drug dealers. The FBI agent in charge in San Antonio sets up a meeting with the Sheriff and the detective and orders them to drop their investigation, but they refuse. Chak then offers a compromise - - that the two sides work together and set a trap for the killer or killers. His idea is that Mrs. Gonzalez and her sleep-in companion, an Albino man named Chi-Chi, move to the Gonzalez ranch. Chak will act as their agent, announcing that the widow is writing a "tell all" book about her husband's activities, and will hold a news conference at the ranch in one month. In the mean-time, no news media persons will be allowed to interview her. The FBI, the Sheriff, and the Texas Rangers set up an elaborate undercover protective network to intercept any suspicious persons who show up in the

A driven art critic’s plan to steal a painting leads to murder in this classic neo-noir novel by the author of the Hoke Moseley series. Fast-talking, backstabbing, womanizing, and fiercely ambitious art critic James Figueras will do anything—blackmail, burglary, and beyond—to make a name for himself. When an unscrupulous collector offers Figueras a career-making chance to interview Jacques Debierue, the greatest living—and most reclusive—artist, the critic must decide how far he will go to become the art-world celebrity he hungers to be. Will Figueras stop at the opportunity to skim some cream for himself or push beyond morality’s limits to a bigger payoff? Crossing the art world with the underworld, Willeford creates a novel of dark hue and high aesthetic polish. The Burnt Orange Heresy—the 1970s crime classic now back in print—has lost none of its savage delights as it re-creates the making of a murderer, calmly and with exquisite tension, while satirizing the workings of the art world as the ultimate con. Now a major motion picture starring Donald Sutherland and Mick Jagger Praise for The Burnt Orange Heresy “Stunning . . . A novel full of genuine fun that also manages to make a level statement about the art world and its hermetic credulities.” —New Yorker

Old-couple Berger and Mitry are back in a new spin on the classic locked-roommystery.

Was a monstrous killer brought to justice or an innocent mother condemned? On an April night in 1989, Jo Ann Parks survived a house fire that claimed the lives of her three small children. Though the fire at first seemed a tragic accident, investigators soon reported finding evidence proving that Parks had sabotaged wiring, set several fires herself, and even barricade her four-year-old son inside a closet to prevent his escape. Though she insisted she did nothing wrong, Jo Ann Parks received a life sentence without parole based on the power of forensic fire science that convincingly proved her guilt. But more than a quarter century later, a revolution in the science of fire has exposed many of the incontrovertible truths of 1989 as guesswork in disguise. The California Innocence Project is challenging Parks's conviction and the so-called science behind it, claiming that false assumptions and outright bias convicted an innocent mother of a crime that never actually happened. If Parks is exonerated, she could well be the "Patient Zero" in an epidemic of overturned guilty verdicts—but only if she wins. Can prosecutors dredge up enough evidence and roadblocks to make sure Jo Ann Parks dies in prison? No matter how her last-ditch effort for freedom turns out, the scenes of betrayal, ruin, and hope will leave readers longing for justice we can trust.

A fast-paced, twisty thriller about an art heist that spins out of control with murderous results... Now a major film starring Elizabeth Debicki, Claes Bang, Donald Sutherland and Mick Jagger 'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard 'Stunning' NEW YORKER Art critic James Figueras is a psychotic, an amoral unrepentant killer. Out to make a lasting name for himself, he seeks out the greatest painter in the world, now a hermit in the Florida swamplands. Figueras is after more than the man, however - he wants the work, and something more ... something more horrible than can be imagined. Crossing the art world with the underworld, THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY ranges from the upbeat Florida sunshine to an art collector who doesn't care how his art is collected, even if it involves murder.

The riveting account of the landmark "Hit Man Case"--involving a man who hired a contract killer to execute his ex-wife, his severely brain-damaged son, and the boy's nurse--written by a noted First Amendment attorney who risked his reputation and career to take on the case.